Toro unveils the DD2226, its first in-house designed HDD

Toro kicked off ICUEE 2017 in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday with the debut of a brand new horizontal directional drill—the company’s first designed by Toro engineers.

After five years of re-branding and making “tweaks,” as marketing director Neil Borenstein called them, to the Astec Underground HDDs Toro acquired back in 2012, the DD2226 represents the first fully-Toro HDD.

Toro spokesman Andrew Gillman says the DD2226 holds only 10 percent of design holdover from the drill it replaces, the DD24. “This is a great machine for fiber, telecoms and small to midrange stuff,” Gillman added. “It’s something we can truly call ours.”

The drill is powered by a 72-horsepower, 3.3-liter Tier 4 Final Yanmar engine that requires no diesel exhaust fluid (DEF). It delivers 2,600 lbs.-ft. of rotational torque and 22,000 pounds of thrust and pullback.

Pipe capacity is 400 feet of 10-foot pipe and the drill features a cam-style pipe loading system that allows operators to rotate pipe in the basket. The system also allows for additional pipe to be side-loaded for bores extending beyond 400 feet.

SmartTouch automated pipe handling

The DD2226 also features Toro’s latest update to its TDOS-1 operating system which now features what the company calls SmartTouch control mode. Borenstein says the feature automates much of the pipe loading process.

“The pipe loading process typically requires two hands and a complex series of control functions,” says Borenstein. “Toro’s new SmartTouch mode streamlines much of that process with a single switch. It’s a major leap forward in horizontal directional drill controls, and it stands to save operators a lot of time,” he adds.